"It will be the test of Gemmell," he said, "how he bears this. No man,
I am very sure, was ever told that his dream could not come true more
kindly and tenderly than you told it to him." He was in the middle of
the next sentence (a fine one) before her distress stopped him.

"Tommy," she cried, "you don't understand. That is not what I told him
at all!"

It was one of the few occasions on which the expression on the face of
T. Sandys perceptibly changed.

"What did you tell him?" he asked, almost sharply.

"I accepted him," she said guiltily, backing away from this alarming
face.

"What!"

"If you only knew how manly and gentle and humble he was," she cried
quickly, as if something dire might happen if Tommy were not assured
of this at once.

"You--said you would marry him, Elspeth?"

"Yes!"

"And leave me?"

"Oh, oh!" She flung her arms around his neck.

"Yes, but that is what you are prepared to do!" said he, and he held
her away from him and stared at her, as if he had never seen Elspeth
before. "Were you not afraid?" he exclaimed, in amazement.

"I am not the least bit afraid," she answered. "Oh Tommy, if you knew
how manly----" And then she remembered that she had said that already.

"You did not even say that you would--consult me?"

"Oh, oh!"

"Why didn't you, Elspeth?"

"I--I forgot!" she moaned. "Tommy, you are angry!" She hugged him, and
he let her do it, but all the time he was looking over her head
fixedly, with his mouth open.

"And I was always so sure of you!" were the words that came to him at
last, with a hard little laugh at the end of them.

"Can you think it makes me love you less," she sobbed, "because I love
him, too? Oh, Tommy, I thought you would be so glad!"

He kissed her; he put his hand fondly upon her head.

"I am glad," he said, with emotion. "When that which you want has come
to you, Elspeth, how can I but be glad? But it takes me aback, and if
for a moment I felt forlorn, if, when I should have been rejoicing
only in your happiness, the selfish thought passed through my mind,
'What is to become of me?' I hope--I hope--" Then he sat down and
buried his face in the table.

And he might have been telling her about Grizel! Has the shock stunned
you, Tommy? Elspeth thinks it has been a shock of pain. May we lift
your head to show her your joyous face?

"I am so proud," she was saying, "that at last, after you have done so
much for me, I can do a little thing for you. For it is something to
free you, Tommy. You have always pretended, for my sake, that we could
not do without each other, but we both knew all the time that it was
only I who was unable to do without you. You can't deny it."

He might deny it, but it was true. Ah, Tommy, you bore with her with
infinite patience, but did it never strike you that she kept you to
the earth? If Elspeth could be happy without you! You were sure she
could not, but if she could!--had that thought never made you flap
your wings?

"I often had a pain at my heart," she told him, "which I kept from
you. It was a feeling that your solicitude for me, perhaps, prevented
your caring for any other woman. It seemed terrible and unnatural that
I should be a bar to that. I felt that I was starving you, and not you
only, but an unknown woman as well."

"So long as I had you, Elspeth," he said reproachfully, "was not that
enough?"

"It seemed to be enough," she answered gravely, "but even while I
comforted myself with that, I knew that it should not be enough, and
still I feared that if it was, the blame was mine. Now I am no longer
in the way, and I hope, so ardently, that you will fall in love, like
other people. If you never do, I shall always have the fear that I am
the cause, that you lost the capacity in the days when I let you
devote yourself too much to me."

Oh, blind Elspeth! Now is the time to tell her, Tommy, and fill her
cup of happiness to the brim.

But it is she who is speaking still, almost gaily now, yet with a full
heart. "What a time you have had with me, Tommy! I told David all
about it, and what he has to look forward to, but he says he is not
afraid.